Sunday, May 13, 2012

Iberian Mask Festival (1 of 3)




Spain and Portugal's old traditions 'deliria' on the streets of downtown Lisbon

32 comments:

Sharon said...

Wow, those are some elaborate masks.

smudgeon said...

those masks are somewhat unsettling!

Living In Williamsburg Virginia said...

Great shots. Looks like a lot of fun.

Darryl and Ruth :)

Kathy said...

They remind me of some of the characters in Sendak's "Where the Wild Things Are."

Unknown said...

That's what I was going to say Kathy - now we know "Where the Wild Things Are"! Must have been fun to shoot -

Dina said...

Wild indeed.
Hey JM, have you ever put on such a costume?

Birdman said...

What faces! It's coming summer here and ... festivals!

Unknown said...

@Dina: Me? Never! :-) I saw most of these costumes for the first time yesterday.

Arija said...

So rich, colourful and inventive. I do like the animal skin faces.
I have no idea what the origin of this festival is but in Latvia where I come from we had a custom in the old days before the wars, where people would dress up in animal costumes on New Year's Eve to chase the old year out with all it's goblins. It apparently became rather interesting when a real bear joined in . . .

VP said...

Awesome, I have never seen anything like this!

Dave-CostaRicaDailyPhoto.com said...

Julie and I have a lot of masks hanging on the walls of our house, but none of them look like this, and none are from the Iberian peninsula.

Regarding your comment on our VivalaVoyage.com site today about the high altitude in the Atacama, the only time I have gotten altitude sickness is when I did not drink enough water on our first day going up high into the Andes.

Sylvia K said...

What a fun start for my day, JM! These are pretty wild! I love your captures! Awesome! Have a lovely evening and a great week ahead!

Sylvia

TexWisGirl said...

wow!

Rob Siemann said...

Wow. Very very old traditions, it seems.

Randy said...

That second on is scary.

Halcyon said...

Looks liken interesting tradition. Love the costumes. :)

Kay said...

The animal masks look a little frightening to me -- is that blood on the aprons/towels in the first one?

Unknown said...

@Kay: I guess it's meant to be blood, although I have no idea what's the story behind this.

cieldequimper said...

Why didn't you tell me? I'd have come over. This is fabulous. I love these old traditions.

Cezar and Léia said...

Some scary masks and horns here... Must be fun! :)
God bless you!
Cezar

theconstantwalker said...

Wonderful to see..

Shaun said...

Those are some pretty radical costumes. Some really good captures, i especially like the last one. Looks like he has a fox on his head.
Shaun Valleys ShutterBug

Melbourne Australia Photos said...

Amazing shots. Jose! This looks like some sort of pagan fertility ritual. There is a similar tradition with animal masks in Northern Greece.

Unknown said...

Its remains me Carnaval here in nort Spain, greats photos.
Greetings.

Fernando Santos (Chana) said...

Excelentes fotografias....
Um abraço

Bob Crowe said...

They look African, but colder. It would be a bad idea to sell Belgian Delirium Tremens beer near this parade.

Jack said...

Wow! These are great. I would love to see this celebration.

orvokki said...

Very interesting and nice fotos.
Greetings!

Carolina Louback said...

Gostei dos leques coloridos, mas as máscaras, definitivamente não são do meu agrado.

Kate said...

dMaurice Sendak would love these photos!

PerthDailyPhoto said...

Brilliant costumes JM, this last one a wee bit scary!!

Gunn said...

Superb images from a superb event!